"Even though I do not use Windows XP, I still think that it is rather selfish to suddenly stop providing services to people who still use it."

XP is almost 13 years old; I think it's entirely fair for Microsoft to call EOL on it, given that there have been 3 major upgrades since then. How long should a company continue to support an old product in order to not be selfish, in your opinion?

We should share that number with, well, every other company who EOLs products, and see if they agree?

@TerryB said "But do all of you really believe that if Chrome, Firefox, etc was the dominant browser for consumers that malware guys would not be finding exploits in those browsers? ⋯ let's recognize this for what it is: malware guys have a long history and expertise at attacking MS because of it's dominant market share."

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But not using the dominate browser is still the solution !!! If one had to choose a field to cross and all choices had land mines in them, would you not choose to cross the field which had the least number of land mines in it rather than crossing the one which was most familiar to you but had the most number of land mines in it ???

It scares me how people can have thoughts but these thoughts are totally illogical.

Funny, but the CERT message I read that was issued today stated, "We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," the Department of Homeland Security's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in a post Monday morning. That means there will be no resolution to this issue. Users should immediately cease using IE and head directly to one of the others ASAP. I highly recommend Chrome.

Even though I do not use Windows XP, I still think that it is rather selfish to suddenly stop providing services to people who still use it. I wonder what that means for users of Windows 7 (myself included) when Microsoft decides that it is time to render this operating system obsolete. And this trend is not only limited to internet explorer, even the regular updates to the operating system that were once so frequent have almost stopped. I think it would be more prudent to let users know the time duration over which an operating system will be 'valid' (meaning profitable to Microsoft) whenever they are selling their operating systems.

Many of you are regular commentators I recognize and usually agree with. But do all of you really believe that if Chrome, Firefox, etc was the dominant browser for consumers that malware guys would not be finding exploits in those browsers? It reminds me of the people who swear the Mac o/s can't get malware because no one seems to report any incidents.

I'm no defender of Microsoft or IE but let's recognize this for what it is: malware guys have a long history and expertise at attacking MS because of it's dominant market share. It will take awhile before those attacks shift across other o/s and browsers. Or do all you really believe the code in other browsers is perfect?

But I agree this is worst case scenario for XP users. You knew it was matter of time but never thought it would hit this quick. That smart thing for XP users to do is quit using Flash. Unless it's that same Flash game you've been playing forever and you have link right to it. But browsing around to new sites with Flash enabled? Just a matter of time...

It doesn't take much to get someone to switch browsers: slowness, a security scare, even just one annoying feature. IE has made some big advances in recent versions, but this new vulnerability on the heels of XP's end-of-life will turn a lot of people to Chrome, Firefox or Safari (if they're on a Mac). And once they leave IE, they don't tend to come back.

This blog post explored bad news. I did not have the news about the problem which is occurring in IE. Recently i updated IE to IE11. It is really frustrating. The second bad news is no support or fix for windows xp. I am waiting for a quick remedy from MICROSOFT.

I wrote an article in my company's newsletter pointing out that XP is not safe to run. I did point out some ways to run it, such as disconnected from the internet, but stressed that if you have an XP machine you should really start thinking about replacing it. I had a few people say I scared them. That wasn't my intent but I couldn't just tell them not to worry, it will be all fine. XP is unlike any other MS OS in that is still widely used in business. That is exactly why it will be a target hor hackers.

I bet everyone is surprised about this one. Well, it didn't take long for XP to be exploited, or more precisely, IE on XP. IE on all the supported OS's will be patched but I agree with just about everyone who has responded. Use another browser.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.